Augustus Washington Graham papers, 1805-1936.

Abstract: Augustus Washington Graham, attorney in Hillsborough, N.C., 1872-1888, and in Oxford, N.C., 1888-1927; secretary of the Board of Arbitration to settle a boundary dispute between Virginia and Maryland and member of the board, 1873-1876; judge on the North Carolina superior court, 1895-1896; member of the Board of Town Commissioners of Oxford, N.C., 1889- 1892; chair of the Board of Education of Granville County, N.C., 1907-1908; member of the North Carolina Senate, 1885; member of the North Carolina House of Representatives, 1901-1905, 1909, and 1913, serving as speaker in 1909; trustee of the University of North Carolina; cotton futures attorney for the United States Internal Revenue Service, 1915-1918; and president of the American Cotton and Grain Exchange Inc., 1919-1922. Correspondence and other papers documenting the law practice and the business and political interests of Augustus Washington Graham of Hillsborough, and Oxford, N.C., as well as some material about his family and Confederate veterans’ affairs, especially the United Confederate Veterans. Major topics include copper mining in North Carolina and Virginia; railroads, especially the Oxford and Coast Line Railroad, the North Carolina Railroad, and the Seaboard Air Line Railway; Granville County politics; North Carolina state politics, including Graham’s terms in the North Carolina General Assembly; Graham’s work as cotton futures attorney for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, 1915-1918, and as president of the American Cotton and Grain Exchange; and his activities as trustee of the University of North carolina. Major correspondents include William A. Graham (1839-1923), Walter Clark (1846-1924), Josephus Daniels (1862- 1948), and Julian S. Carr (1845-1924). Also included are some papers of Graham’s brother Robert Davidson Graham (1842-1905). The Addition of October 2006 consists of an autograph book belonging to Robert Graham while he was a student at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C. (A.B. 1868).

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: The collection includes material on a home for African-American orphans in Oxford. In series 4, the first two volumes (V 995/ 1 and 2) contain lists of African American voters in Orange County from the 1870s and 1880s.